Home to touch base . . .

(In sff.net, a reader wrote in about artificial beef, yum.)

Like Pohl and Kornbluth's Chicken Little in _The Space Merchants_, Bruce.  An idea whose time had come a half-century ago.  I predict a lot of market resistance in America and Europe, which might evaporate as the cost of meat skyrockets.  And Madison Avenue applies its creative might to the problem. Home from Japan five days now, and nothing much has happened.  Unpack, do laundry, get ready to pack the suitcase again.  Off to the Nebula Awards weekend in San Jose on Thursday.  Then to UC Davis for the 100 Year Starship Symposium.  Then Baltimore, GoH at Balticon.  At the end of May I get to come back to Florida, until mid-June.  Then up to Harvard for a "Communicating Science Through Fiction" symposium.  Then patriotically home till the 4th of July, and off to Spain.I don't really hate travelling as an abstraction, though I do hate airports.  Long flights at least give you time to sit and read.  The nonstop Tokyo-to-Atlanta was too long, though; more than twenty hours in transit.  My right knee seized up pretty badly.Yesterday we did get out for a little bike ride with Brandy, ten miles through the woods.  My right knee and foot complained.  My usual Raleigh had blown out a tire (valve core failure when I pumped it up) so I went out on its alternate, a hardcore Trek that saw better days ten years ago.  Hard pedaling and as comfortable as being ridden out of town on a rail.  A stiff "touring" bike, it has all the comfort of a bouncing sawhorse.Got the Raleigh fixed this morning after writing, so I do have two days of regular biking before flying off into the sunset.Joe